"The digital landscape is a nomadic world. Access is hindered by those who insist on traveling with heavy baggage," write Mikela and Philip Tarlow, who have worked with clients as diverse as senior executives of Fortune 500 Companies, entertainers, and entrepreneurs. They believe that the transformations now taking place in our ultra-tech world economy have an ancient mirror in the aboriginal world. Members of these tribes were nomadic hunters and gatherers; they honed their skills to negotiate a realm where everything was connected and dependent on networking and cooperation. The Tarlows have written this bold work for those who don't just think out-of-the-box but call that their personal address.
This consistently thought-provoking book contains four sections: Who Owns the Wind? The Return of the Storytellers, Tribalmind, and Riding the Songlines. According to the Tarlows, the traditional boundaries defining economic activity are fractured and dismantled. Everything is up for grabs. Businesses and organizations that want to survive will have to come to terms with a new marketplace that is nomadic, imagination-driven, collaborative, discontinuous, and shaped by "the ability to absorb new directions and redefine how one knows one's self."
Check out the Tarlows' discussion of the information-just-wants-to-be-free debate about the Web and copyright laws. Ponder the startling statistic that alliances account for 6 to 115 percent of a typical company's market value. Synergy means growth. Hold your breath as the authors ponder the return of intangibles to the corporate world. And our favorite — consider the marketplace equivalent of the spiritual practice of renunciation: "The remote control no longer rests in our hand. It has become part of our brain, allowing us to screen out unwanted information with incredible accuracy and effectiveness." Digital Aboriginal is filled with interesting stuff, cogent overviews, and the lineaments of an emerging "digital mysticism."
